An Ode to Lahaina

It was August 8 when fires fanned out across Maui, and a day later when it became known that Lahaina Town, home of Lahaina Yacht Club, had been destroyed. In this report by Neil Rabinowitz for Cruising World, he reflects on the magnitude of this loss:

I came to Lahaina from the south. After 13 days on an unleashed reach out of French Polynesia, I clung to the mast top, my legs wrapped in a death grip. We swung west into Alenuihaha Channel, known to Hawaiians as the river of laughing waters. The sun blazed and the trades howled as 20-foot rollers raced up our stern and frothed over the rails.

Flying our heaviest chute was risky, as the channel boiled with towering whitecaps, but the Beach Boys blared from the deck speakers, and Maui loomed ahead in all its verdant glory. Cobalt-blue waves cascaded on the approaching lava rocks of Kaupo. Hana stood lush to the east, with the Big Island’s Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea silhouetted to the south.

I hadn’t been back to America in years, and I now charged full-tilt—unvanquished from the south seas under a swollen spinnaker, drunk on Brian Wilson. – Full report

Editor’s note: Lahaina Yacht Club is currently without a clubhouse, but they intend to carry on their activities while seeking to secure a temporary facility and planning for their rebuild. To make a donation, click here.